Author and former Medtronic executive Bill George says authentic leaders should forget about the clock and focus on their inner passion.

A clock is the icon that would probably best fit the lives of many top executives—how many minutes until the next meeting, how many hours until the quarterly figures are in, and so on. Bill George suggests a different circular tool: the compass.

Since leaving medical device manufacturer Medtronic, where as CEO he led the company to great success, George has spent the majority of his time thinking, talking, and teaching about leadership. Judging from recent headlines about Attorney General Gonzales and World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, George’s focus couldn’t come at a better time.

Without an internal compass, it’s all too easy for leaders to lose their way, often coming to believe that they are the institution, said George. “For anyone given the trust to run an organization, that’s a major sin. But that’s what happens: they get caught up in their own greatness. Some of these people feel like imposters, but they feel like they have to carry out the role. That’s very dangerous.”

Through his classes at Harvard Business School and his books, Authentic Leadership and True North, George provides developing leaders with the other side of the story. In the just-released True North, he describes a program for becoming an authentic leader, based on interviews with 125 top business executives.

What struck him about the stories these leaders told was the consistency with which people talked about their life stories, as opposed to traits or characteristics they might have been born with, George said.

For example, Starbucks’ Howard Schultz wanted to create a company opposite of the kind that caused his father, a delivery man, to go into debt as the result of a work-related accident. At the time, there was no worker’s compensation, and a broken ankle when Schultz was seven sent his family into despair.

“It’s critical to let your passion and your life story guide you,” said George. “Sometimes people don’t think that way; they simply follow the path in front of them or some clock that says they have to be a director by 30, a VP by 35, and CEO by 40. That’s one of the reasons I wrote this book: my fear that a lot of people feel stuck in their jobs and have never discovered what they’re passionate about.”

In denial
George had his own experience with pathfinding. While on the fast track at electronics giant Honeywell, he turned down several offers to become CEO of Medtronic. “I thought of myself as being en route to becoming CEO of Honeywell, and I thought that was what I wanted. But I was very unhappy, and I had to face that,” he said.

George said he eventually realized he was not passionate about the business. “I wanted to be in a growth business, and one in which I could be myself,” he said. “I got a lot of coaching at Honeywell to be different than who I was.”

This is not unusual, said George, and it’s a major problem in companies today. “You’re taught to change your behavior, to be more laid back or to make sure you look really good in a meeting or presentation. But it takes you away from who you are. The tapes that play internally go all the way back to your childhood with a certain message, and it’s contrary to these changes. And you think: That’s not who I am—I feel like a phony up here on the stage trying to look impressive.”

George began to feel that rather than changing Honeywell, Honeywell was changing him. “But I was in denial about that because I was going to be CEO, I had to get to the top. Why I was in such a hurry I honestly can’t tell you,” he admitted.

Eventually, he met again with Medtronics founder Earl Bakken and realized the enormous opportunity to grow the company and make a difference in people’s lives. “When I walked in the door, it felt like home,” said George. “Home is a place where you can be yourself, where people accept you for who you are—they don’t care what your title is or how you dress.”

Lest people think only executives in the healthcare field can claim to make a difference in people’s lives, George points out that passion can be found in any company. “Target has 300,000 employees, and they are all empowered with a simple message: our job is to create great value for consumers with fashion-forward merchandise in clean, well-lit stores,” he said. “That’s something everyone can feel passionate about.”

Servant leadership
The most important thing George learned in his years as a top executive is that leadership is not about getting people to follow you. “In the 21st century, it’s time to get away from the WWII idea of following the great man over the hill. That’s a war-like image, and it’s flawed notion,” he said.

Instead, George advocates empowering other people so they can step up and lead. “You can have a lot of influence, but only if you empower other people to find their gifts,” he explained.

This change is critical because today’s worker is no longer looking to be a 1950s-style apprentice. “That model is gone,” said George. “Today, the workers know more than their bosses. Young people still have a lot to learn about wisdom, but they know a lot more about their jobs.”

They also have options. The average student coming out of school is probably going to work for six to eight organizations in their lifetime, noted George. “We used to think of people like that as job hoppers; today, we look at them as having diversified experiences that can be useful to your company. They want to step up and lead now. And, frankly, if they can’t get that, they’ll go form their own company.”

George hopes the new book, which contains a series of exercises to help people become authentic leaders, will lead to a different type
of leadership development. “I think we’ll see more organizations using this in their internal leadership development,” he said.

“Leadership development in many companies is fundamentally flawed because it’s based on trying to change ones nature by adopting certain ‘leadership’ traits. That takes you away from your authenticity. I strongly believe leadership development inside a company should be aimed at developing the leader within.”